cooking!!!

I was so excited for today! Not far from our farmhouse, we had arranged for a cooking class with Velia. She has many fans of her cooking lessons and I couldn't wait to learn the real stuff. We got there in the morning and cooked for 4-5 hours. We learned how to make many different types of bread and rolls, a delicious pork roast, pasta, foccacia, and a marscapone cream dessert. Everything was delicious and Velia, Gianluca (her husband) and Mama (her, yes you guessed it, mom) were a delight to be with! She says she comes to the United States every year to teach cooking lessons and we are trying to get her to come to Utah next....anyone want to come join us??

Velia is showing us how to make bread dough. Notice the olive oil next to her...from her farm. It seems everyone has their own olive oil. So cool.

Ali sprinkling rosemary on the foccacia bread. She is an expert!

Velia spreading the mustard glaze on the pork roast. I really liked this...it was delicious!

The rolled bread with arugula, cheese and roasted peppers inside. It was beautiful!

Ali helping with the marscapone cream for the dessert.

Velia sprinkling the cocoa powder on the finished dessert. Notice the spoon in the center of where she is sprinkling...making that cool stripe. Never would have thought of that!

Lauren learning the fine art of pasta making while Mama watches carefully. She could get that dough so thin!

Fried zucchini flowers. These were all over Italy. They are really yummy...keep those flowers!

We shared the cooking lesson with four cute women from Florida. They were all between 80-90 years old and having a girls trip. How cute is that?? Loved those women! Jon and the boys joined us for the feast. There was plenty of food for all!!

These guys were the best. Not only do they do cooking lessons, but they also run a restaurant/bar in Orvieto. We stopped by and saw them while we were there. Can't wait to see them in Utah!!!

random rome

Here are just a few random thoughts about Rome I wanted to record before we move on.

This is what street signs look like....cool plaques on the sides of the buildings.

I heard so much about the "cobblestone streets" in Rome and wondered what they actually were. Well, here they are. All over, these are what cobblestone streets look like.

Yes, it's true. There is gelato everywhere. This is what a gelato store looks like. Some even have hundreds of flavors. Not good for the whole "time off from P90X" thing.

Scooters are everywhere and they are fast. They even squeeze inbetween cars while driving. A little too scary for me!

Fashion update: Colors here are mostly navy, white and tan. Lots of belts. Lots of scarves. Just thought you might want to know.

bambini in Rome

I'm backtracking a bit, but wanted to add a few more things about Rome.

Down the street from our apartment was a great little children’s museum. The boys were so excited to go, so Jon took them while I took the girls out shopping. They had a lot of fun and Matthew even made a friend from Australia. Here are some random pictures of the museum.

wow.

I was so hoping to see this! We arrived in Baschi (a small country town near Orvieto in the Umbrian region) this afternoon in this car:

I was a little nervous about the whole driving in Italy thing, but Jon did a great job. We even stopped here on the way for a little fresh mozzarella:


We settled into our rooms in the little farmhouse and then went to Civita di Bagnoregio. It is this city that was once on a hill, but has decayed into this island in the sky. It is breathtaking. You can only get to the city by walking this footbridge over a large valley. All around the area is stunning scenery.

I thought that would be enough reward for coming, but then we walked through the town. I could not believe how beautiful the buildings were. This is exactly what I pictured (actually better than I pictured) a typical, Italian countryside town looking like.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures.

Ali couldn’t stop taking pictures.

If I could paint, I would spend my days trying to paint these pictures.
On the twenty minute drive back to our farmhouse we found this restaurant.

It was built into the side of a cave. It was a really unique place and we had a great meal.

Great day.